Brain region implicated in emotional disturbance in dementia patients

A study by researchers at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) is the first to demonstrate that patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) lose the emotional content/colour of their memories. These findings explain why FTD patients may not vividly remember an emotionally charged event like a wedding or funeral.

The research team discovered that a region of the brain, called the orbitofrontal cortex, plays a key role in linking emotion and memories.

"This step forward in the mapping of the brain will improve how we diagnose different types of dementia," says the study's lead author, Associate Professor Olivier Piguet.

The fact that we vividly remember events infused with emotion - like birthday parties - is well established. Patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) - a degenerative condition that affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain - show profound difficulty understanding and expressing emotion. Yet the extent to which such deficits weaken emotional enhancement of memory remains unknown.

To find out, the NeuRA team showed patients images that prompt an emotional reaction in healthy people. Healthy control subjects and patients with Alzheimer's disease remembered more emotional than neutral images. The FTD patients, however, did not.

Professor Piguet says, "Up until now, we knew that emotional memories were supported by the amygdala, a brain region also involved with emotion regulation. This study is the first to demonstrate the involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex in this process. This is an important development in how we understand the relations between emotions and memory and the disturbance of the emotional system in this type of dementia."

NeuRA researcher, Fiona Kumfor, says the findings will help carers better understand why their loved ones may find personal interactions difficult. "Imagine if you attended the wedding of your daughter, or met your grandchild for the first time, but this event was as memorable as doing the groceries. We have discovered that this is what life is like for patients with FTD," says Fiona.

"This is the first study that has looked at memory and emotion together in FTD and that is exciting. We now have new insight into the disease and can demonstrate that emotional memories are affected differently, depending on the type of dementia.

This information could help us create diagnostic tools and change how we diagnose certain types of dementias and differentiate between them. We have basically found the source of the deficit driving these impairments in patients, which brings us a step closer to understanding what it means to have FTD," she concluded.

More information: The paper 'The Orbitofrontal Cortex is involved in Emotional Enhancement of Memory' has been published in the journal Brain.

Related Stories

(Medical Xpress) -- A new study on emotion recognition has shown that people with frontotemporal dementia are more likely to lose the ability to recognise negative emotions, such as anger, fear and disgust, ...

In order to better counsel patients, it is key for clinicians of different disciplines to be aware of, and diagnose, the 'overlap syndrome' between two medical disorders - ALS and FTD - since it significantly affects patient ...

(Medical Xpress)—A team of researchers working at the University of California's Memory and Aging Center has found that emotional contagion appears to increase in a linear progression with patients who have Alzheimer's ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Yale University researchers have discovered one of the first tantalizing clues to how frontotemporal dementia (FTD) - often mistaken for Alzheimer's disease - wreaks havoc in the brain.

Recommended for you

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have discovered a mechanism that causes long-term memory loss due to age in Drosophila, the common fruit fly, a widely recognized substitute for human memory ...

Like musical sounds, different states of mind are defined by distinct, characteristic waveforms, recognizable frequencies and rhythms in the electrical field of the brain. When the brain is alert and performing ...

Highly anxious people have more trouble deciding how best to handle life's uncertainties. They may even catastrophize, interpreting, say, a lovers' tiff as a doomed relationship or a workplace change as a ...

Lights, sound, action: we are constantly learning how to incorporate outside sensations into our reactions in specific situations. In a new study, brain scientists have mapped changes in communication between ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that navigational brain cells that help sense direction are as electrically active during deep sleep as they are during wake time—and have visual and ...

User comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.